A Serious Man: The Search for Meaning
A man’s search for meaning amidst the absurdity of life.
One of the Coen brothers’ most overlooked films, A Serious Man (2009), perfectly captures the futility of finding meaning in the absurd nature of life. The main character, Larry Gopnik, is a physics professor that relies on logic in a field where everything makes sense, who, ironically, can’t seem to make sense out of the constant suffering that life brings upon him. This leads him to the point where he begins to question his beliefs.
The film actually starts with a seemingly unrelated parable: a Jewish man comes home to inform his wife that he was helped by an old man and they should expect a visit. The old man arrives and the wife accuses him of being a “dybbuk” (a possessive spirit in Jewish folklore), so she stabs him with an ice pick, and he simply laughs at the situation and leaves. This short tale sets the tone for the events to follow. The rest of the film takes place in 1967. Larry finds out his wife has been cheating on him and is asking for a “get” (a divorce). The man she’s having an affair with, Sy Ableman, constantly invades Larry’s personal space and makes the divorce process as uncomfortable as possible for him. He feigns kindness towards Larry just to further torment him.
Besides his divorce, Larry is troubled by other problems in his life: his children don’t acknowledge him and treat the whole situation with as little interest as possible; he’s forced to move out of the house and into a cheap motel until the divorce is finalized; his eligibility for tenure is being questioned due to some anonymous letters; his brother, who lives with him, is accused of solicitation and sodomy; he’s blackmailed by the parent of a student he gave a failing grade to; and, to top it all off, he’s being charged for a monthly subscription that he never even signed up for. So, as you can see, he has no control over his life.
He feels there must be some reason for all of his suffering, that God is trying to tell him something, so he seeks advice from the wisdom of three rabbis. The first one, a junior rabbi, tells him that it’s all about “perspective,” and he should try to see life through clearer eyes. The second rabbi, Nachtner, tells him a long story about a dentist, who also found himself in a similar situation, albeit a very peculiar one. As the dentist was attending one of his clients, a goy, he realizes that there was something written in Hebrew on the back of his teeth: “Help me. Save me.” He converts it into a phone number, and it leads him to a supermarket, where nothing particularly interesting happened. He asked Rabbi Nachtner what all of this could mean, to which the rabbi replied, “Helping others… couldn’t hurt.”
The dentist accepts this and goes back to his regular life. When Larry hears this, he is left unsatisfied with the answer, as if he expected some climactic revelation. He tries to set up a meeting with the third and final rabbi, Marshak, but he was told that the rabbi was too busy to ever meet with him. So, left with no real answers, the film ends with Larry caving and passing a student that doesn’t deserve a passing grade, then he receives a call from his doctor, which one could assume has some pretty bad news for him, and his son’s school is about to be hit by a tornado. So, what’s the point?
Well, that’s just it. There is no point. Larry tried to find answers to questions that aren’t really there. He looked for meaning where there is none and wanted God to explain why his life is so horrible. The thing is… life just is. And the meaning we find in it is just that, the meaning we ourselves give to it. The rabbis’ answers, although cliched and unsatisfying, were actually correct, in a way. Life isn’t gonna give you any real reason for anything — things just happen. And we can look at it as an opportunity to do some good and help others, or we could get lost in the search for meaning.
Larry keeps in mind that actions have consequences, in physics and in life, as he tells his Korean student, Clive. But when he is constantly being punished, due to no fault of his own, his whole perspective in life is suddenly questioned. He doesn’t know what to do with the uncertainty of everything; how things just happen because they just do, even if he didn’t actually do anything to deserve all of this suffering. In one of the most unexpected scenes, Larry’s brother, Arthur, breaks down because he’s not allowed to play cards anymore, which leads to him lamenting his own life and pointing out how much better off Larry is compared to him. Which goes in line with what the junior rabbi had said to Larry (you know, perspective).
In one of the few instances where Larry seems to take matters into his own hands, he visits Mrs. Samsky and offers to help her with whatever she may need. Of course, this is an attempt to get closer to her and seems to be a very proactive decision on his part to go after what he desires, while also trying to follow Rabbi Nachtner’s advice to help others. She invites him inside for a drink and the two end up smoking marijuana, and for a brief moment, Larry seems to be free of all the noise from his life. The song “Today” by Jefferson Airplane can be heard in the background, which plays into the whole idea of Larry going after what he wants and being present in the moment. He begins to contemplate over the advice given by the junior rabbi until a police siren brings him back to reality, with some bad news, of course.
Rabbi Marshak meets with Larry’s son after his Bar Mitzvah and repeats to him some of the lyrics from “Somebody to Love” by Jefferson Airplane: “When the truth is found to be lies, and all within you dies…” The rabbi doesn’t finish the lyrics, but simply asks, “Then what?” Of course, the song’s chorus ends with: “You better find somebody to love.” Which fits in with the whole existential angst that Larry’s been going through for the whole film. Maybe Larry should’ve come up with his own answers and stopped relying on the wisdom of others to answer questions that pertain to him.
Many interpret the parable at the beginning of the film as an indication that the old visitor actually was a dybbuk, and Larry’s ancestors were the ones that brought upon a curse that lasted for generations. I’m not really sure if that’s the case. I mean, there’s certainly an argument that could be made, but I lean more towards the quote at the start of the film:
Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you.
-Rashi
Which might be interpreted best if we look at the story from the perspective of the old man. He helped somebody that was in need, he was invited to dinner as a gesture of gratitude for his goodwill, but when he arrives, he’s called a dybbuk and stabbed with an ice pick for a reason so ridiculous, it’s hard not to laugh. The old man understands the situation that he’s in. There was no real reason for him to be stabbed, but he accepts it and simply leaves. He doesn’t question it all. He knows that sometimes bad things just happen, and he has no control over that. Simply control what you can to make life easier for yourself — something no amount of goy’s teeth could ever tell you.
It didn’t even matter that Larry couldn’t even speak with Rabbi Marshak because he wasn’t gonna have the answer that Larry wanted to hear anyway. And while the film seems pessimistic and bleak, if anything, it’s more of a cautionary tale of what happens when someone gets too hung up on what the point of everything is. Through all the uncertainty in life, the Coen brothers’ exploration of the absurd need to find meaning in the meaningless pretty much boils down to one beautifully delivered line of dialogue: “Please, accept the mystery.”
